Anderson’s imagination checks into ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’

The Grand Budapest Hotel

With “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” Wes Anderson is up to his old tricks but with a magnanimous new confidence that feels like a gift. Set in the fictional country of Zubrowka between the wars, it’s the story of a world-class concierge named Monsieur Gustave (Ralph Fiennes, achingly fine), his adoring acolyte Zero (Tony Revolori), and the hive of intrigues, subplots, and character actors that buzz around them in all directions as the international stormclouds gather. It’s a lovely film, steeped in a vanished world, and if it doesn’t quite tap the emotional depths of “Moonrise Kingdom,” it offers countless delights of its own. Among the players: Jude Law, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, and lonesome Bill Murray.